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NY GOP meets privately; gay marriage still unclear

ALBANY, N.Y. — It's a familiar scene with a major twist: New York lawmakers meet behind closed doors in the frantic last days of a six-month legislative session with a big pile of seemingly unconnected issues on the table in front of them.

This year, however, there is intense national focus on one big issue left dangling: Gay marriage. The 32 Republicans meeting will decide, maybe as soon as Tuesday, whether to send a bill approving same-sex marriage to the floor for a full vote. Only three Republicans need to vote for it to make New York the sixth state where gay marriage is legal.

It wasn't clear if the lawmakers were even discussing gay marriage in their closed-door session Tuesday, which was the last scheduled day of the legislative session.

What started as an aggressive push last week by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who made gay marriage one of his main policy initiatives in his first year, has ground to a halt while competing interests vie for the issues dearest to them.

So, extending and possibly expanding rent control for apartment dwellers in New York City, where rents are stratospheric, is tied to gay marriage. A 2 percent property tax cap statewide is tied to both.

Cuomo met twice Tuesday morning with Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Long Island Republican who, like all legislative leaders in Albany, holds great sway over which bills make it to the full Senate for a vote. He is opposed to gay marriage but says he'll let his members decide its fate.

Twenty-nine of New York's 30 Democratic senators support the gay marriage bill. Two Republicans, Sens. Roy McDonald and James Alesi, also support the bill, creating a 31-31 tie. Two or three Republicans are undecided on their vote.

Supporters and opponents gathered at the capitol again Tuesday, but there was little of the raucous singing, chanting and jousting that marked Monday's rallies. State troopers were on hand just in case.

New York's vote is pivotal in the national debate over same-sex marriage, an effort that largely stalled in the same room two years ago when the Senate voted it down. Since then, efforts have failed in New Jersey, Rhode Island and Maryland. Advocates hope a "yes" vote will jumpstart the effort.

Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage. Of them, all but Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., allow at least limited religious exemptions.

Skelos worries that a federal judge could strike down flimsy religious protections in the current proposal if a religious group, such as the Knights of Columbus, is sued for discrimination for refusing to provide its hall for a gay wedding. He wants protections that will allow a religious group to observe its principles without conflicting with a gay marriage law.

There was little progress Monday, even as hundreds of chanting advocates and opponents of same-sex marriage tried to make their case. The key sticking point appears to be how much freedom to grant religious groups who protest gay marriage and refuse to perform services or provide related functions like wedding receptions.